Origins – Part 1 – No Blog Title Set

This is the first post of a new gallery and studio space founded by Riikka Enne and Sophia Moffa: Tape Modern. Tape Modern is a mobile gallery, currently collaborating with a squatting crew Love C.O.Ps [Community Occupied Properties] and operates in various buildings in Manchester. Love C.O.Ps are dedicated to hosting events that are open to all and everyone.
I should start from the beginning: Sophia, myself and a third friend of ours, a fellow artist Katerina Eleftheriadou, founded a collective called modestly ambitious. The goal was to find a studio space where we could also host exhibitions and build workshops for wood and metal with all proper equipment, but most importantly, we wanted to start an international artist residency to have an exchange with artists from all over the world. We did a crowdfunding campaign in the autumn of 2017 to have a little nest egg for our new initiative to get us off the ground. We had our eyes on a specific building, an old GP’s practice in Miles Platting that had been empty for a few years. The building was owned by the city council so we approached them only to hear the sad news that the building would be taken down the very next month. But since we had a conversation channel open with the city council, we started the council supported process to get another council-owned space. The only problem was, we could get started in our new space in a year. Naturally, we couldn’t wait that long, so we started searching for other affordable options.
Cutting a long story short, we found Love C.O.Ps, who kindly offered us the basement floor of their building as a studio if we cleared it out and offered project space and assistance to anyone who wanted to work in the space. The building was a gorgeous old knitwear mill with four floors in all. The building was casually called Cozy, short for Cozy Dragon which was the name of the pirate ship that the squatters had built in the event space.
The basement was a beautiful space, but it had been used as a tip for the squats rubbish and due to some unattended leaks it took quite some time and hard work to make the space up to a functional studio.

Just above the back stairs to the studio.

That structure is the most inventive way of fixing a leak in the toilet.

We found a full set of drums and a few tires.

This is how it looked like when I first entered.

Another view; the door at the back leads to the side entrance stairs.

We ripped of quite a bit of the carpet tiles since they had taken moisture damage and we needed the floor under them to breath and dry.

The main entrance staircase is gorgeous cast iron.

This wall was thoroughly brushed to so we wouldn't need to keep collecting the rubble falling from it.

I should've counted the bags, just out of curiosity.

There was a curious wooden structure that could've been a dividing wall in the making, but it was bolted to the ground. Well, makes for good chip wood sheets when we take it apart.

There was a sheet of plastic under the chip boards so all the moister in the basement had formed into a nice juicy, fungusy goo. The mystery substance was scrubbed with disinfectant for ages.. and ages.

It seemed that brushing the carpet got it cleaner than our powerless vacuums.

This would be a good place for a tatting pile, we'll just make a neat one.

Taking rubbish to the tip with Shkiesha and Jamil.

A van full of new materials and furniture on our way back.

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In the vast open space, the amount of rubbish didn’t seem like that much but we cleared three full vans of bin bags, rubble, carpeting and loads more. Luckily, through gracious donations, we also collected two vans full of furniture, brand new carpet, wood and all sorts of bits and bobs.
I got a lot of help from some of the crew members, one that should be specially mentioned is Paul. He was cleaning with me almost every day and often when I arrived at the studio, he was already at work. Paul has now become our gallery technician. Another person who should also be mentioned is Triky. He fixed the electricity into the studio. Not an easy task since the building was squatted sometimes before we came there and some bits of wire were missing so the greatest challenge was to try and follow all the wires and figure out which cables brought electricity to where. But all that got sorted. After two weeks the rubbish was cleared out, we had electricity on all sockets and lights and the only thing left was the fun part; building working areas, a little kitchen and bringing in our own tools, materials and all our studio gear.

1310421The damp leaky rooms where sealed with salt gravel, plastic sheet and wooden boards.

The amount of brushing on the carpet was insane, but it's done.

The back door still needs a rebarricading.

The chip board sheet we got from the weird structure drilled on the ground was more than useful; it made us tables, our tatting corner and sealed the damp rooms.

Triky building a bath, the only reasonable place in the building where to put it. To be fair, I kind of loved the idea of a bath in the studio.

Ta ta daa! Sweet palette tables custom made for a few different hights.

My precious studio reading chair is the most comfortable thing and just the right size for one dog and one person.

Our furnitures finding their place. Even the kitchen is starting to take form at the back.

Tatting pile: all spare materials and objects were and would be placed here so any one could take what they need.

Shkiesha brought in a few bits for her work space as well.

This still needs sorting. The window is brokec and while putting some wood on it we found that the whole frame was falling out of it's place, only held there by a few pipes. This was our first aid solution.

Sealing and fixing the water damaged rooms.

There's our studio gear in the corner, easily movable on wheels so when we need to spread out to make sculpture we can use the whole space.

found object: modestly ambitious, enter, escape

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There are more stories to tell from the early days; all the events held there during the time, people coming in and out, the squat life in general to be honest, seems to be full of stories! I’ll start a thread later, titled the Memories from Cozy to show more images and get to the details of things, but for now, this is the beginning in a nutshell. We got the studio to a point where we could start doing our art but we didn’t get to enjoy it for long, full two days…